


The Barton-Romanov Effect

by Selenay



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Blame Fahre, Crack, Humor, Ignoring certain spoilers, M/M, Natasha is awesome, Post Movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-16
Updated: 2012-06-16
Packaged: 2017-11-07 21:30:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/435652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selenay/pseuds/Selenay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say that twice is co-incidence and three times indicates a pattern. The eateries of New York were probably regretting that saying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Barton-Romanov Effect

**Author's Note:**

> I blame [Fahre](http://fahrenheit-f430.livejournal.com/) for this entirely.

It started innocently. The first victim was the weekly breakfast at a coffee place just down the street from the Stark Tower that had become a tradition every time Wednesdays did not require an early morning world saving effort.

Natasha would contend to her dying day that the breakfasts were to prevent Stark ending up with an arrow in his ass rather than because she had a weakness for almond croissants the size of her head. She dragged Clint to the coffee shop every week so that he could vent in private and it generally took a week before he started to look like he was getting itchy fingers every time Stark opened his mouth.

That fateful morning Clint was moaning about the early hour and squinting through his shades despite the overcast sky while Natasha was mentally debating between two or three espresso shots when their coffee shop exploded.

More accurately, half the building exploded but it was the coffee shop that they both noticed first.

Espresso, gone. Almond croissant, gone.

Any doubts that it had been an accident vanished as something emerged from the blasted-out shop-front.

It was not human, or at least, it was no longer human. There were horns. Teeth. A tail with a sharp spike on it.

"Fuck, I left my bow at the tower," Clint said irritably.

"Got your gun?" Natasha asked.

Clint just raised an eyebrow at her and she rolled her eyes.

"Text Steve, I'm going after it," she said.

"I'll get the civilians out," Clint confirmed and they were off to save the world again, unfortunately without coffee or pastries to take the edge off their mutual bad mood.

Unfortunate, that is, for the creature they spent the next hour chasing, shooting and beating.

***

"Let me get this straight," Phil said, feeling that familiar throb at his temple from an incipient headache. "You had breakfast at that place every week for how long?"

Natasha's normally precise posture slumped slightly. "Four months."

"Not every week," Clint was quick to put in. "Only weeks when we weren't saving the world on a Wednesday morning."

"Well, that makes it so much better then," Phil said.

Clint tried a grin and it faded under Phil's glare.

"So, you ate there on multiple occasions and you never noticed that the proprietor was cooking up some kind of superhuman serum in his back room?" Phil said, getting right to the part that was making his head hurt. "A superhuman serum that went badly wrong."

"Er," Clint said.

"He made great almond croissants," Natasha added, as though that made it better.

"Give the girl an almond croissant and she's yours."

Clint got a sharp elbow in the ribs for that comment and only years of practise kept the smile off Phil's face. He suspected that Clint would be paying in full for it the next time they sparred.

"The guy looked normal until this morning," Clint said. "And it's not like we can check out the back room in every coffee shop we go to."

Natasha nodded her agreement, her back straightening.

"Well, your bloodwork came back normal, no unidentified substances detected, and nothing odd showed up in the coffee or the pastries," Phil said. "You're clear for active duty as soon as you have your reports written up."

"Wait, he made croissants before he blew up the shop?" Clint asked. "Bastard."

As there was absolutely nothing that Phil could say to that, he made a vague shooing gesture at them and watched his dust-coated, battered superheroes limp away.

***

Natasha hated paperwork only slightly less than Clint did. Half the forms were hard-copy that had to be hand-filled and she was certain that was because Coulson enjoyed watching Clint bitch and grouch his way through them, usually on Coulson's couch in his office.

Turning a page, she stared at a form that she immediately decided Coulson had made up just for the joy of torturing them. Did superhuman baristas really happen often enough that there was a form ICD-977-Y for them?

Thinking about coffee shops led to think about food and Natasha's stomach growled. It had been early evening by the time the Coulson finally released them yesterday and supper had been left-overs from the pizzas that Tony, Steve and Bruce had mostly decimated at the Tower during a movie marathon that afternoon. Her breakfast this morning had been hours ago, and only a bowl of cereal at that, and Natasha was hungry.

A noise at her door made her look up to see Clint in the doorway.

"Lunch?" he said. "It's spaghetti and meatballs."

"Were you spying on the kitchen from the ventilation shaft again?" she asked, putting her pen down gratefully.

"I plead the fifth," Clint said, "but Magda's making chocolate fudge cake. With real whipped cream on the side."

Natasha was halfway across the room before she remembered that she was supposed to be calm and inscrutable.

Clint held out an arm. "Can I walk you to the lunch room, ma'am?"

Natasha rolled her eyes and walked past him.

"Did Coulson send you an FR-883?" Clint asked, hurrying to catch up.

"Was that the one about damage to telecommunications equipment (accidental)?"

Clint frowned. "I think that was FB-883. I got one in my stack for a full inventory on what we ate, including preferences."

Coulson was definitely starting to invent forms.

"And you still think Coulson isn't-"

Natasha broke off at the sound of a loud bang and then she staggered as the corridor shuddered around her.

"Fuck," Clint said. "I left my bow in Coulson's office."

They immediately began running towards the bang, pushing through the people sensibly running in the other direction, and Natasha decided not to ask why Clint's bow was in Coulson's office. Sometimes the answers to those questions were not things she needed to know about either man. Mostly because she got tempted to lock them both in a cupboard until they either fucked or at least talked about the ridiculous mutual pining.

The source of the panic proved to be the lunch room, which was now sporting a large hole in one wall and three robots with shiny blue paint jobs. Natasha narrowed her eyes.

"Nat, I think they blew up the cake counter," Clint said.

She swore in Latin and pulled her gun out.

***

Phil brushed at his sleeve and gave it up as a bad job. The dry-cleaning bill for the suit - the third so far this month and it was only March tenth - could be expensed. He surveyed the remains of the lunch room. Robot parts littered the floor and Stark was already gathering up arms and heads. Rogers was examining his shield, frowning at the scratched paintwork. Natasha and Clint were sitting on the floor, back to back, coated in dust and spaghetti sauce. There were several people on the floor but they were all moving or moaning or otherwise indicating their lack of deadness.

"Stark, put those down," Phil said wearily.

"I was just-"

"Now," Phil added.

Stark reluctantly put down the heads and arms and Phil made a note to have him searched before they left the building.

There was the sound of running feet and a moment later one of the medics cautiously peered into the room. Phil beckoned him in and watched as the medical team went immediately to the most severely injured.

"I need a shower," Natasha announced.

Clint put a hand to his head, discovered a particularly thick blob of sauce mixed with noodles, and nodded his agreement.

"We'll have to see Director Fury first," Phil said.

"Pretty sure he won't want you dripping OJ all over his floor, sir," Clint said.

Phil looked down at the slowly spreading puddle of orange liquid around his feet.

"Fine, showers first," he said.

***

They say that twice is co-incidence and three times indicates a pattern. It was over a week before a third eatery became a victim of the Barton-Romanov effect, a week of rushed sandwiches and midnight bowls of cereal thanks to a busy period in the superhero business. Then the Avengers had a quiet day and Natasha dropped by the shooting range just before lunch because sandwiches could only fuel a body for so long and she needed Pad Thai.

The fact that the Thai place two blocks away did amazing banana fritters was entirely coincidence.

She waited for Clint to shoot the final three arrows in his quiver and studied the effect with a critical eye.

"New equipment?" she asked.

Clint nodded. "I think the balance is off. They're dropping too much. I can compensate, but I'll take a few home tonight and see what Stark can do."

"Hungry?"

"I could eat," Clint said casually.

The loud gurgle from his stomach betrayed him.

"Uh huh," Natasha said. "Thai OK?"

"Perfect."

She waited as he carefully gathered everything up and put it away in the relevant cases. Clint hesitated when they detoured to the armory to drop everything off and then he shrugged and put his bow case into its cupboard.

They got all the way into the restaurant this time before things started to go wrong.

A woman standing on a table in the middle of the dining room wearing a ridiculously glittery catsuit was odd even for New York. The long, glowing spear that she was wielding, the smoking holes in the back wall and the atmosphere of unconcealed terror in the restaurant confirmed that they were interrupting the emergence of another would-be super villain.

"Fuck, really?" Clint said. "Knew I should have brought my bow."

"Kneel before me!" the clueless criminal mastermind shrieked.

"Not today, thank you," Natasha said, calculating angles, probabilities and victim locations rapidly.

She ducked and rolled as a blast of something shot by her and hoped that Clint had done the same. A moment later she heard his voice swearing into a cell phone and ordering people to "just fucking assemble already" and turned her full attention to their opponent.

"You are about to have a very bad day," Natasha announced as she jumped for an overhead beam to launch herself into the fight.

***

Phil thanked the doctors and walked towards the bay where Natasha and Clint occupied neighbouring beds. The dazed look in Clint's eyes worried him but the medics assured him that it was only a minor concussion and the archer would be fine in a few days, although they had also advised that Clint should avoid impacts to the head for a while.

Natasha had fared better, her only real injury a burn on her upper arm where she had been singed while getting a civilian out of the line of fire.

"Tasha, you can go home," he said quietly. "They want to keep Barton overnight."

"Thanks," Natasha said gratefully.

He handed her a clean SHIELD-issued jumpsuit - her clothing had been torn badly in the fight - and received one of her rare smiles.

"Boss?" Clint said, obviously struggling to focus fully.

"Barton, you're on a week's medical leave," Phil said firmly. "Not my decision."

The pout that Clint displayed looked ridiculous.

"Then it's light duties only until I say so," Phil continued. "No arguments or I'll ban you from the range."

Clint rolled his eyes and winced as it obviously made his headache intensify. "Fine, sir. No saving the world until you say so. Unless something-"

"No exceptions," Phil said.

"What if-"

"Barton?"

"Shut up?"

"Exactly."

***

The couch in the enormous living room that Stark had built when he renovated Stark Tower was sinfully comfortable and Natasha had commandeered it as a paperwork-doing nest for the day. It was the part that nobody ever mentioned about the superhero gig: the endless forms, reports and requisitions that had to be filed. Catching up on it while on medical leave wasn't strictly adhering to the spirit of 'medical leave' but Natasha intended to get it all up to date so that she could spend her time in the training room rather than her office when she was finally allowed to return.

Medical leave seemed ridiculous for one smallish burn, Natasha felt. She suspected that it was because Coulson needed her to keep Clint obeying the doctor's orders rather than any worry that she needed time off.

As though he had known she was thinking about him, Clint wandered into the living room.

"Hey, doing anything important?" he asked.

Natasha gestured at the papers strewn around her and raised an eyebrow.

"Great, then you must need some fresh air," Clint said, ignoring her hint. "Want to take a walk?"

"Where would we be walking to?" Natasha asked as she scribbled her signature at the end of a form and started gathering everything up.

"Just around the block," Clint said vaguely.

"And?"

Clint shrugged. "Thought we could pick up some donuts."

Natasha studied him carefully, taking in the quiver disguised as a backpack and the case that he often carried one of his back-up collapsible bows in.

"Expecting trouble?" she asked.

"Learning from experience," Clint said. "Maybe if I've got my fucking bow this time, nothing will happen."

***

Phil's heart was racing by the time he skidded into medical and found his injured agents.

"It's not as bad as it looks," Natasha said immediately.

Phil raised an eyebrow, taking in the cuts and bruises on Natasha's face, the gash still being sewn on Clint's calf and the dilated pupils that could only mean someone have given Clint morphine. At least there was no obvious head trauma to make the recent concussion worse.

"What happened?" Phil asked, trying to sound clinical rather than weary.

"Donuts," Clint said hazily.

"Barton, let the lady not drugged to her eyeballs explain," Phil said.

Natasha shrugged. "He's right. We went for donuts. There was a gas explosion."

"A real one," Clint added. "Fucking gas explosion. Not even a cover for anything. Destroyed my bow."

It took a moment for Phil to process that.

"Why did you take your bow to get donuts?" he asked.

"Seemed like a sensible precaution," Clint said.

The nurse finished with Clint's leg and wheeled her cart away so Phil sat on the edge of Clint’s bed and felt his heart start to calm down.

"How many casualties were there?" Natasha asked.

"Not too many," Phil said, trying to remember the details from the brief conversation with the lead emergency worker. "Less than twenty and only two had significant injuries, apart from Barton."

"He was trying to shield some kids when the ceiling fell in," Natasha said.

Phil turned to look at Clint, who was humming under his breath with a beatific smile on his face. It was the kind of thing he would do. It was the reason that Phil was always torn between yelling at him for taking stupid risks and kissing him.

"His bow?" Phil asked.

Natasha rolled her eyes. "He dropped it when he dived on the kids and tried to get them under a table. Half a building fell on it."

"You have very nice eyes," Clint said, his voice starting to slur.

"Am I free to go?" Natasha asked quickly.

"The doctors don't need to keep you," Phil said.

He was vaguely aware that she was moving around, collecting gear and slipping away. Unfortunately Clint appeared to be completely out of it and morphine apparently made him rather grabby. Phil removed a wandering hand from his thigh and stood, leaning over the bed.

"Barton, you'll regret this when you sober up," he said regretfully.

Clint shook his head. "No way."

He lunged upwards in an abortive attempt to kiss Phil, which might have been tempting at any other time but the glazed look in his eyes just made Phil feel guilty.

"Let's hope you forget this when you sober up," Phil said, pressing Clint back to the bed and stepping back quickly.

Clint weakly protested but he was already sliding towards sleep. Phil made a note to put some warnings on Clint's file about morphine.

***

Natasha was smart. Maybe not on the level of a Tony Stark, but she was intelligent and her reasoning skills were top-notch. That was the reason that she dragged Rogers out to pick up pizza for the team, leaving Clint at the tower, although she carefully did not mention that he was an experimental subject.

"Doesn't Tony usually get this delivered?" Rogers asked as they strolled down the street.

"I thought we could use the walk," Natasha said. "It's been quiet for the last few days. Have you even left the tower lately?"

"I go to headquarters all the time," Rogers protested.

Natasha waved a hand. "Doesn't count."

"Well, it's nice to...what was that?" Rogers said.

Natasha's heart sank.

***

"That's it, she's banned from all eating establishments in Manhattan," Stark announced irritably. "Particularly any on the list that I will be emailing of my favourite restaurants."

Natasha sighed. "Don't worry, I'm getting the message."

"It's not really Natasha's fault that a swarm of genetically enhanced ants attacked the pizza place as we were approaching," Steve said nobly. "I'm sure it's just coincidence."

"It's the fourth time this month!" Stark said loudly. "That's beyond coincidence."

"Fifth," Clint said helpfully. "There was the lunchroom as well."

"Thanks," Natasha said.

If he had not still been nursing four cracked ribs and some epic bruising...

"At least nobody got injured this time," Rogers said.

***

At the general suggestion of the team, Natasha stayed away from all eateries including the newly refurbished SHIELD lunchroom for several weeks. The patisserie in Paris definitely did not count because she was being Nicole Jalabert at the time and it was pure bad luck that her target chose that particular location to force a confrontation.

Natasha had been looking forward to trying the orange blossom macarons.

Then there came a morning when she quite innocently interrupted Clint and Coulson in the kitchen where she was hoping to get some lunch. It was an educational moment. She silently closed the door, made a mental note to get the entire place disinfected before she ate there again and stuck a do not disturb note on the door.

At least there would be no need to lock them in a cupboard any more.

Smiling, Natasha decided that hot dogs sounded good for lunch. She wouldn't be inside an eatery, surely it would be safe.

***

"Really?" Natasha shouted as she watched a fireball fall from the sky and make a direct hit on the hot dog stand.

***

A few days later, Natasha ran into the medical bay and stopped dead, staring. Clint and Coulson were sitting in neighbouring beds coated in what looked suspiciously like a mixture of barbeque sauce and plaster dust.

"What happened?" she asked.

"Apparently it's not just you," Clint said gloomily.

***

The Barton-Romanov effect, as the rest of the Avengers took to calling, resulted in a lot of takeout at the tower and a lot of home cooking as everyone tried not to invoke the curse. Natasha learned never to trust anything that Thor had prepared unless it required only heating in a microwave or toaster and Coulson demonstrated a previously unadvertised talent for Indian cookery.

There were a few advantages of having Coulson around the tower more often, even though Natasha did feel the need to disinfect the kitchen regularly. Clint had assured her that it was just that one time but as Clint also flushed every time Coulson leaned against a certain counter, she was taking that with a pinch of salt.

Unfortunately, none of them could bake worth a damn and the only person that Natasha trusted with knowledge of her weakness for pastries was Clint. That meant the only baked goods that ever appeared in the tower were the left-over scraps from other peoples’ Starbucks runs.

It could in no way compare to the freshly prepared chocolate twists from the artisan bakery and coffee shop three blocks away.

When the SHIELD lunchroom reopened someone had come up with the brilliant idea of announcing the daily menu via email. Natasha usually deleted the messages unread to avoid temptation, but one morning her curiosity overcame her and she did a quick scan, promising herself that she would trash it as soon as...

Magda's chocolate fudge cake.

Natasha's mouth watered. She quickly scanned her contacts list but the only person actually logged in and at their desk was Clint.

His office was three doors away and Natasha knocked as she entered.

"Need a break?" she asked.

"What did you have in mind?" Clint said, already locking his station and standing.

"Lunchroom."

He stopped. "Are you sure?"

She shrugged. "Maybe we're over it. Bad luck has to end one day."

"It's the chocolate fudge cake, isn't it?" Clint said.

Natasha just looked at him.

Clint grabbed a case from beside his desk, a quiver from the back of his chair and walked to the door.

"Need me to warn Coulson?" he asked.

The lunchroom seemed normal as they approached. No running, no screaming, no flames. They stopped outside the door and Natasha cautiously peered around it, looking for any sign of trouble.

She had just enough warning to signal Clint to get his gear ready before chaos erupted. Twelve huge, bat-like creatures materialised in midair with a crackle of lightning and Natasha sighed. A gun and a knife were in her hands without any thought and she caught the first of the bat things in the eye before anyone had time to scream.

Clint's first arrow caught another one in the throat and then Natasha was too busy fighting and shooting to really do more than work with her instincts.

***

Phil sat on the floor shoulder to shoulder with Clint, their backs against an overturned table. If he leaned slightly against Clint solid shoulder, nobody would ever know.

Stark was bitching loudly about Jello messing up the servos on his suit, which seemed unlikely, and Natasha was lying on her back with a defeated expression. The sight of Rogers coated head to toe in chocolate milk was making it difficult for Phil to maintain his usual reverence for the man.

"Tasha," Clint said quietly.

"Yes?"

"Look up," he said.

Natasha opened her eyes and looked in their direction. "What?"

"On the counter," Clint directed. "Do you see what I'm seeing?"

Phil followed where he pointed and raised an eyebrow. Somehow, in the midst of all the destruction, there sat an undamaged glass-domed cake stand.

The three of them contemplated it for a while, tuning out the sound of Stark and Rogers bickering over who had suffered the worst food-related indignities.

"It looks like chocolate cake," Natasha said eventually.

"Magda's chocolate fudge cake," Clint agreed.

Phil tiredly pushed himself to his feet and approached the counter. There was even a knife inside the stand, as though someone had been about to cut a slice when they were interrupted. He picked up the stand and returned to Clint, who took it while Phil sat. Natasha sat up and scooted closer.

Reverently, Phil lifted the lid of the stand and allowed the chocolate scented air to escape. Natasha looked ready to fall on it right there and Clint was now sporting a wide grin.

"It's a sign," Natasha said, a rare smile curving her lips.

"A sign?" Phil asked, wielding the knife carefully.

He handed the first slice to Natasha, ignoring Clint's muttered complaints, and made a mental note on Clint's apparent partiality to chocolate frosting.

To anyone who didn't know her, Natasha would have looked entirely unmoved by her first bite of cake. To Phil, she looked happier than he had seen her in a long time.

"Our luck is changing," Natasha said. "We should got out for supper tomorrow."

“I know an Italian place that does great tiramisu,” Phil offered.


End file.
